10. Wrong Person Soup #2
The warehouse is enormous. The flashlight catches glimpses: shelving units stacked with parts, tool racks along the walls, workbenches covered in half-assembled ride components.
A coaster train sits on a section of track in the center of the floor, partially disassembled, its fiberglass shell removed to expose the mechanical skeleton underneath.
It looks like a dinosaur fossil if dinosaurs had been built by engineers who cared about load ratings and passenger safety restraints.
The air smells like grease and metal and dust. Just the honest stink of a workspace that's been sealed up and left alone.
Something clanks in the dark.
I stop so fast Joel bumps my shoulder.
"Did everyone hear that?" I whisper.
"Yes," Joel says.
"No," Beck says at the same time, which isn't comforting because Beck says no with the cheerful confidence of a man who thinks denial is a sport.
The clank comes again. Metal on metal. Slow. Repeating.
Joel lifts his wrench. Beck shifts his grip on the axe. I raise the friendship paddle and try very hard not to think about the fact that I've already used this thing on one wrong person today and apparently violence has a loyalty program.
The flashlight sweeps left.
A chain hangs from the ceiling near the coaster train, swaying gently. At the end of it, a loose hook taps against the metal frame.
Clank.
Clank.
Clank.
No wrong people. Just a chain. Just a normal industrial horror noise made by a normal industrial murder hook in a normal industrial murder shed.
"I hate buildings," I say.
Beck sweeps the flashlight. Left wall. Right wall. Back corner.
We clear it properly after that. Joel takes the left wall, Beck takes the right, and I stay between them with the friendship paddle raised while we check every aisle, workbench, storage cage, and dark space beneath the coaster train.
Nothing lunges. Nothing chews. Nothing turns out to be worse than a hanging chain with excellent timing.
"Clear," Joel says at last.
"What's in here? What can we use?" I ask.
The answer is: everything.
The warehouse is a goldmine. Tool racks with wrenches, screwdrivers, pry bars, bolt cutters.
Spare ride parts that can be repurposed as barricade material.
Welding equipment that Beck's eyes lock onto.
Zip ties in bulk. Cable. Chain. Industrial-grade adhesive.
A first-aid kit the size of a suitcase mounted on the wall near the workbench.
"This is the best room in the park," Beck says, running his hands along the welding setup.
"The fish tube is the best room because it's where I slept and the sharks are nice. But this is the second best room."
Joel's already loading a tote bag. He takes tools by category, grouping them, nesting smaller items inside larger ones, maximizing space with the expertise of someone who has opinions about load distribution.
He finds a laminated binder in a wall pocket and goes still.
"What is it?" I ask.
"Maintenance schematic."
"A secret where picture?"
"A schematic."
"A backstage where picture."
"It shows service tunnels, emergency access points, utility shutoffs, storage rooms, drainage, electrical panels."
"So yes. A secret where picture."
Joel puts it in the tote bag. The secret where picture is ours now.
Beck finds a nail gun. He lifts it with both hands like he's discovered a holy relic.
"No," Joel says immediately. "No nail gun."
"What if the nail gun is emotionally ready?"
I look at the nail gun. "I think we should take it," I say.
Joel turns to me with betrayal in his eyes, which is rude because I'm being practical. "Why?"
"Because someday we may need to attach one thing to another thing with violence."
Beck points at me. "Leadership."
We redistribute the supplies and fill every inch of space the four tote bags have left. Joel closes the door behind us. I draw another X on the where picture in periwinkle.
Two down. Two to go.
The Viking pavilion is a large open-air structure with a thatched roof and wooden pillars, designed to look like a Norse great hall.
Inside, there are themed dining tables, a stage for live performances, and a gift shop section with rubber swords, plastic horned helmets, and drinking mugs shaped like skulls that I'm taking because morale matters and skull mugs are morale.
It's also completely empty.
"No wrong people," Beck announces, having done a lap of the interior in approximately fifteen seconds. He moves through spaces the way a dog moves through a park: fast, curious, covering every corner with kinetic enthusiasm.
"No wrong people," Joel confirms, having done his own slower, more systematic check of the structural elements, the exits, the support beams, the roof integrity, because Joel doesn't just clear a room of threats, he evaluates whether the room itself is a threat, which is a level of thoroughness that I find both admirable and exhausting.
"No wrong people!" I agree, having done nothing useful except stand in the entrance holding the friendship paddle and trying to look like I was contributing.
I grab skull mugs. Four of them. They're twelve dollars each, which is highway robbery for a novelty mug, but things that make you feel like a Viking while drinking water are worth their weight in civilization.
I also grab a fur-lined cape from the costume rack near the stage. It's fake fur, obviously, but it's warm and it's dramatic and I put it on over my Wondie hoodie. This is an upgrade from my previous aesthetic, which was post-apocalyptic gift shop warrior.
"Grace, take off the cape."
"No."
"We need to move quietly."
"The cape is quiet."
"The cape is dragging on the floor."
I look behind me. The cape is, in fact, dragging on the floor. It's also collecting debris: a candy wrapper and a small plastic Viking that fell off a display. I'm a Norse warrior with a supply chain.
"I'll hold it up."
"Grace."
"I'll tie it. I'll make it shorter. I'll... okay, fine." I take off the cape, fold it, and put it in the tote bag. The cape will wait. The cape knows its time will come.
Three X's on the where picture. Periwinkle is running low. I switch to seafoam green because that's the next crayon in the box and adaptability is a leadership quality.
And now there's one building left.
The haunted house.